Aloft

Nana Kunning (Jennifer Connelly), a struggling mother of two young sons, takes her children out into an isolated location. She, along with other parents and children, have come there in order to be seen by the Architect, a faith healer who heals by constructing small delicate structures out of branches and then bringing patients inside them. The Architect works by lottery and Nana’s son Gully, who has an inoperable brain tumour, is not chosen to be saved.

Nana and the rest of the crowd stay to watch the healing happen, however before the Architect can touch the patient, Nana’s son Ivan’s hawk crashes into the structure. Nana goes inside to try and lead the hawk outside but the Architect stops her and allows the hawk to break out on its own which destroys the structure. The crowd is furious at Nana and her sons for ruining the healing and refuse to give her a ride unless they abandon the animal. When Ivan finally releases the hawk one of the men shoots it down in front of him.

Sometime later the Architect goes to Nana’s job at a hog farm in order to tell her that she healed the blind boy she touched in the structure. When Nana protests she didn’t do anything the Architect informs her he never even touched the boy’s eyes while she did. Nana ignores the Architect but is surprised when the man who shot her son’s hawk down comes to her to plead with her to save his child telling her he can’t wait until the Architect’s next performance.

Nana goes to the Architect and he begins to train her in creating the structures needed to heal people. In order to fix the legs of a little girl Nana builds a swing. Nana instructs her sons to wait in the car while she heals the girl, however Ivan leaves the car and sees his mother with the girl. Angered, he takes the car and attempts to drive Gully home, however he crashes the car into a lake. When the ice begins to break Ivan persuades Gully to jump out the window, though unbeknownst to him there is a large hole in the ice directly where Gully jumped. Gully is drowned under the ice. Nana is crushed by Gully’s death and decides to leave for a short time to concentrate on her faith healing.

Decades later a grown up Ivan (Cillian Murphy) is visited by a journalist named Jannia Ressmore (Mélanie Laurent), ostensibly to do an interview on the hawks he now breeds and raises. When Ressmore asks him if he is still in contact with his mother he cuts the interview short.

However she leaves him with a video of his mother from the late 90s. When he learns that Ressmore intends to interview his mother Ivan decides to go with her, leaving behind his wife and young child and taking one of his hawks with him. Ressmore and Ivan travel to Nunavut where they find that the road has been blocked by a truck accident and decide to continue on on foot. In the dark Ivan begins to hear the ice cracking and stops walking warning Ressmore not to come near him. She does however and takes him by the hand, convincing him to walk step by step as the ice breaking was a hallucination. They are picked up by a local man who takes him to his home and lends them his truck.

Aloft (Spanish: No Llores Vuela) is a drama film written and directed by Claudia Llosa, starring Jennifer Connelly, Cillian Murphy, and Mélanie Laurent. The film premiered in competition at the 64th Berlin International Film Festival.